Hey guys! I'm back again. Yes, I know I should be working on my two other continuing stories, but I decided to make this little one-shot for a piece that I made for the Five Nights at Freddy's fandom. Newsflash, I will apologize in advance for being in the Instant Feels Delivery service ;-;. This is pretty depressing, but if you like reading this kind of stuff, then be my guest. Enjoy!
The old music box's melody chimed quietly through the abandoned prize corner, the soft and sweet lullaby weaving a cocoon of tranquility around the desolate place. Inside the box was a marionette, worn from use and stained, rocking itself back and forth slowly, letting the soft music lull it into a comatose state. It hoped that the music will go on forever, keeping it in a trance just so it could forget the evils that had been committed there. The rocking continued and it shivered. And then, it remembered.
It was newer back then, when the pizzeria was set to re-open. Children flocked its prize corner, eager to see the new animatronic, and were thrown into fits of giggles and cheers as the music box stopped its melody and revealed the Puppet, its porcelain face smiling as it passed out a variety of presents to the tiny, happy crowd. It was then that he met her.
The little girl with the blonde hair.
It had never seen such a happy child. Sweet as a dove she was, and kind. She would visit it every time she came to the pizzeria, and instead of wanting the newest toy in its prize corner, she wanted only its company, and would stay and talk for hours to it. And it would listen. Never had anything brought the puppet so much joy and happiness than to see the little, blonde girl smile when the music box would stop its lullaby and shout in joy as it popped out like a jack-in-the-box. It loved to see her smile.
Though, it worried over the little girl constantly. How could she not have any friends? She always came to it alone, even though there were so many other children around. But, it was a short-lived anxiety, for the next time it saw her, she brought three boys to meet it. They shared her enthusiasm as they stared in awe when it popped out, and clapped at its entrance. It made it happy to see they liked its rather simple entry, but it made it sad that, though every other child had a toy to play with, they did not.
So, it reached up with its long arms and plucked from the shelf four toys: a plastic microphone, an eye patch and a wooden hook set, a red, plastic guitar, and a plush cupcake. They thanked it for its generous gifts and proceeded to play with their new toys, except the little girl, who smiled and wrapped her arms around its cloth dressed figure.
'Thank you, Puppet.' she had whispered sweetly, and if it could have smiled any wider, it would have.
That was the way it was when the little girl would come to visit it. That was the way it stayed. Never had it been any happier.
The puppet stirred from its trance and noticed the music had slowed down. Without warning, it began to claw the insides of the box in frantic successions, begging it not to stop the music. It feared the quiet, for it knew all too well what it meant. But before he could wind up its box, it grew rigid, its eyes glowing softly as it glared at the torn insides of the box.
It was the day it always hoped for. The day it got to play with the little girl and her friends. When the music stopped, it popped out excitedly, only to be greeted with emptiness. Not a single adult or child was present in the prize corner, though it knew they were there, for the music and the cheering emanated from the other rooms. It glanced at the clock adjacent to his box.
7:30 PM
Odd. It pondered the possibility that she may have stayed home, but it was impossible. She always came to the pizzeria on the fifth day of every second week. It waited for almost an hour, and no one passed by.
Then, its eyes landed on a person on the room across from it. It recognized him as the security guard. Odd. He never left the office. It left it pondering for a moment as it continued to stare at the strange man. And that was when it saw it.
He was slipping inside a Freddy Fazbear suit. Odd, again. The suits were to be worn only by the animatronics, and it was certain that Freddy was out and about in the dining room with the rest of his crew. What was even stranger, the suit was a golden color instead of brown. The man turned slightly to look into the prize corner and met eyes with it.
For a moment they locked eyes, and he smiled at the puppet before he put on Freddy's head. It watched him leave, the smile etching itself into its memory. What was he up to, and why did he need that suit?
The Puppet began to slam its body against the box as the music crawled, distorting the cheerful tune. It continued its assault on the box, begging, pleading it not to stop. Yet, nothing it did regained the tempo of the music.
The music stopped once more, and the puppet emerged from its box. Still nothing. It glanced once more to the clock.
9:00 PM
Saddened by the fact that neither the little girl, nor her friends, nor any other child had come around in almost three hours, it began to retreat into its box. But something had suddenly caught his attention. Right across the hall, five children emerged, happily chatting among themselves and eating pizza. Excitement grew from within it and it perked out of the box again, watching the children. And that's when it saw the little girl, clinging to the plush cupcake as she chatted with a boy with blonde hair.
It moved and waved its long arms in the hopes of catching their attention. But the children did not turn around. Instead, they walked into the other room and were busied by what seemed to be more pizza. It looked on, confused, and pondered why there would be pizza there and not in the dining room, where the adults served it. Then, it saw the reason.
The security guard had emerged from the end of the hall in the golden Freddy suit with a cake. He paid no mind to it as he entered the room and set the cake down. The puppet heard the cries of glee from the children, and could not help but feel a bit jealous. But jealousy soon turned to concern as the children's cheers were silenced when the security guard took off the suit.
Then, it heard a scream.
The Puppet's ragged, metallic breathing quickened as its flailing grew more violent. With one final push upwards, it climbed out of the box and crawled, its purple tear-stains becoming wetter and dripping over the old, tile floor. It struggled for a moment as its controller became lodged inside the box, impeding its advance. It tugged and pulled in violent successions, trying to free the cursed control system. It brought its hand upwards, towards the room across the hall, its tears flowing as its eyes burned with fear and rage.
Blood splattered everywhere as the security guard drove a knife through the blonde boy, causing the others to scream. Horrified, the puppet watched as the security guard butchered the second and the third child.
"No!" it screamed.
Frantically, it scratched and slammed against the harness that held it in place until it slipped through. It climbed out of the box and in its advance, it had forgotten the strings that connected it to the controller on the roof. Once it went as far as it could go, the strings pulled it back, causing it to slam against the box. It glanced up and saw that the security guard, now drenched in blood, was moving forward to the next child, a boy with red hair and a familiar eye patch.
It cried as it advanced again, and witnessed as the boy ducked out of the man's way and ran as quickly as he could towards the door, before being grabbed by the collar and slammed against the floor, where the man climbed on top of him and thrust his blade into his jaw.
"Stop it!" the puppet's childish, robotic voice cried. "Please! Stop!"
But it seemed as another world was going on across the hall, a world that could not listen to his pleas. And then, it saw her.
The little girl with the blonde hair.
She stared helplessly, clutching the plush cupcake to her chest, horrified at what she was witnessing. She did not move, not even when the man retreated his knife from the boy's lower jaw and stood.
It crawled towards them until the strings formed a tight line, limiting his advance once more. But it did not care. It pulled, and thrashed, and tugged against the strings until it saw the ones on his arms pop. It pulled itself with its arms until he heard another pop, its arm reaching out to the little girl.
But she did not move. Her eyes fixed themselves on the man in front of her, tears welling and falling down her plump, pale cheeks.
"No..." it sobbed, its white, porcelain face stained with a purple liquid that escaped from its eye sockets.
The man grabbed her by the neck and stroked her cheek, hushing her sobs and her pleading.
"Please." it heard her sob.
"Someone save them!" it screamed as loud as it could, but the booming music from the other rooms snuffed out his plea.
"Someone, anyone, please!" it continued, "Save Her!"
The man's body stiffened slightly, as if he had heard its screaming and smiled. The same, sinister smile from before.
"You can't."
His grip tightened around the little girl's throat as he pierced her delicate flesh with his blade.
"No!"
The Puppet screamed as it flailed against the strings that held it prisoner. It reached for the emptiness in front of it, still unable to reach them, or her. It sobbed, its old, slender body racking with mechanical movements. It laid there for a moment under the lone, dim light above, defeated as it listened to the sounds of its own cries.
It happened too quickly for it to process. One moment, he was there, and then, he was gone, the sounds of his heavy footsteps growing quieter as he ran. It screamed again, turning around and grabbing its strings. It pulled angrily until they all popped from the control system.
Struggling, it crawled until it reached the doorway to the prize corner and grabbed onto the wall before forcing itself to stand. The purple tears stained its porcelain face as it stared in to the repair room, the 'Employees Only' sign now hanging loosely from the door. It limped towards the partially closed door and opened it, its sobbing beginning again as the bodies of five children laid motionless on the blood-covered floor.
It fell on its knees and clutched the little girl tightly to its chest, sobbing and caressing the child, rocking her gently as it brushed away the blood-stained hair from her face. Her blue eyes, once so lively and happy, were cold and lifeless.
It held her for a moment before approaching the other dead children and pulling them all into an embrace. Slowly, and deliberately, it released its hold on them and crawled to the table, where it hoisted itself up and glared at the remains of the food before brushing them aside.
It then approached a closet. Upon opening it, the old animatronics and their parts fell out before it. It counted them. Freddy. Bonnie. Chica. Foxy. Golden Freddy. Five total.
Its movements were on autopilot as it returned into its mechanical state. Slowly, he pulled each child into the old suits ignoring the way their tiny bones crunched under the pressure the mechanical springs put upon them. This was not what it had wanted to do, but it had to do something. It had to make sure that they could live.
It placed the heads on all the children to complete them and willed them to live. But there they remained, motionless. Anger flooded its limbs as it beat upon the suits, begging them to move and breathe in their new life.
Nothing.
It continued its rampage, but stopped upon Chica and stared, the remains of its beloved little girl fading away. Its hand stroked Chica's face, and its sobbing returned. It had failed her. It had failed them.
Though it breathed in the dusty air, the Puppet felt dead inside. Even to this day, the wretched memories haunted every fiber of its being. Everything numbed it, until it reverted back to the mechanical state of mind. It glared at its strings before grabbing them and pulling them until they all popped from its control system. Slowly, it crawled back towards the box and lifted the control system. It chucked it aside and proceeded to find the lever to the box. It then began to crank the lever, thus rewinding the music to the beginning.
Just as deliberate as it had rewound the music box, it stepped back inside and closed it. The music then began, soft and sweet, and it began its rocking. Back and forth it went, its tears staining its hands as the crying continued quietly. It had thought before that it had lost them forever, but the very next day they had lived.
They lived, and breathed, and roamed. But in the end, it did not help the sorrow he felt. Even though it had brought them back to life, they were gone. Most importantly its little girl. The sweet, little girl with her sweet smile, her cheerful laughter, her kind, blue eyes, all of her, was gone, and in the end, it brought the Puppet no comfort.
Special thanks go out to Trickywi's fanmade sound "Painted Faces" for the inspiration! ^^ Go check her out when you have the chance! Thanks for reading!